See Sum. Theol. 2a-2ae, q. 97, Of Tempting God,
where the gloss is quoted: "He tempts God, who,
having a safe line of action open to him, unreasonably
puts himself in danger by way of making trial of the
possibility of a divine deliverance." It will be seen
that St Thomas agrees with this Criticism, and makes
no defence of this Fifth Mode. I think it likely to
have been extracted from Friar Gerard's Introduction
to the Eternal Gospel which was vehemently attacked
by William of St Amour, and condemned also by St
Thomas: indeed it is the first utterance of the then
nascent seer of the Fraticelli. In the Breviary Legend
of St Cajetan, the founder of Theatines, who were
approved by Clement VII, we read: "He instituted
an Order of Clerks Regular, who should lay aside the
solicitude of all temporal things, and neither possess
revenues, nor beg the means of subsistence from the
faithful, but live solely on alms spontaneously offered."
But as these religious lived in public, and their
profession and mode of life was known, their very going
about, preaching and working for souls, was a virtual
appeal to charity. The Theatines flourished for three
hundred years, and still had houses in Italy in 1845.